The cleaner isn't horrible, it just suffers from a very opinionated design. Price wise, he'd half to cut his prices to 2/3rds what they are to make them even remotely worth it.

OTOH, Miele makes the best damned vacuums available, and doesn't bother with that whirly vortex shit. Their canisters without the optional HEPA filter meet or beat the filtration power in the Dyson Animal models; with the HEPA filter, there isn't any other brand on the market that can come close.

Disclaimer: I have a Miele, it has lasted me over ten years, and has yet to give me problems, and is the best cleaning vacuum I've ever had.

I bought a Dyson vacuum 5 years ago or so for 1/2 price from a clearance sale. It has been one of the best vacuums I have owned. Was it worth the original $400 price? Probably not, but for $200 I think it was a good deal.

I paid almost double that ($700 US), and it is still definitely worth it. The product does much better than any other I've used, it's easy to clean, and it takes all manner of abuse. It's one of my favorite household tools by a long stretch.

> The product does much better than any other I've used, it's easy to clean, and it takes all manor of abuse.

Dyson! It takes on all manors. It'll take on yours. ;)

Dyson, like Bose, is a genius.

And Dyson, like Bose, is an extremely successful marketer.

Both companies have some very interesting engineering which is then translated into expensive consumer products that don't perform notably better than the competition, especially if you consider function (cleaning carpets, reproducing sound accurately) more important than features (no vacuum filter bag! Tiny speaker cubes!).

Of all the dyson products I have (2 vacs, 1 bladeless fan), customer service is the weakest link. The fan has a recall last year, they should have emailed customers shipping labels to print out to drop off the product at our convenience, but rather ask you to visit a local UPS B&M store and the store clerk had to fax the RMA request in. The whole thing took 2 hours on a busy Saturday. Completely failed customer service for a premium product that sells at 5x-10x the price of others. Yes the build quality is good, but not that good to worth 5x-10x the average price for the same product. And certainly not worth the hassles to deal with their customer support.

In the UK at least Customer Service is superb. I honestly cannot rate the company enough.

On the few occasions I've needed anything Dyson simply ask for the serial number and I describe the part. Next day or two and it arrives in the post.

They also do on site visits if the vacuum has any issues. £80 labour and parts inclusive.

I mean my mum still uses her DC02 from 1995 and it works just fine.

They're (in the UK at least) a top, top company.

I've got a Dyson DC18 and it's been good as far as I can tell, but I haven't compared it with anything else. What did you replace it with? Is the replacement better? Did you try any side-by-side comparisons?

1. I've replaced it with a Miele and a Siemens (needed two) 2. The both clean better, I find less dirt in carpets and e.g. in corners than with the Dyson. 3. Personal subjective opinion: Having a bag is cleaner for me.

Huh. I have a Dyson vacuum; it works really well vs the other vacuums I've had. Might be a case of "have not bought decent vacuums before", but it does work.